FIRE BELOW

waiting from nine o'clock on, to bring in the
prisoners which he was certain to take. These
cars were to wait at Vigil until his orders came,
and the surly deliberation with which he
appointed the hour would, I think, have
deceived a far shrewder mind.
I could not help wondering how long the
cars would wait and whether Grieg would be
at Salzburg before his royal victim discovered
that he had been bluffed. What was so strange
was the closeness with which his fiction
approached the truth. He had plainly beer
taught the by-pass the smugglers used when
taking the bridle-path, and had guessed or
learned that we had come by that way. And on
that he had built his story—his fairy-tale.
He could not possibly know that we were in
fact proposing that night to do as he said.
The thing was absurd. I did not know it myself.
M for his mention of Leonie . . .
With a shock I found myself asking whether
indeed it was chance that had brought him so
dose to the truth, whether he had truly been
bluffing—from beginning to end,
My hair rose at the thought.
Had Grieg some information which gave him
jmt cause to think that that very night we should
$®fee ike bridk-path? And that Leonie would
fc waiting on the farther side of the fall ?
After a little I dismissed this fantastic
notion and turned my attention again to the
matter in hand.
To the cud of the curious scene I cannot
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